While Dads Army negotiates the UK way out of the EU, 97 sovereign investors — state pension funds, central banks, and government ministries are collectively holding $12tn of British assets.

The invisible hand of capitalism has the UK by the short and hairs.

We are a stone throw away from a crucial point in the current Brexit negotiation, should those who own Britain be nervous.

Given the uncertainty over taxes on imports and market access, when you wake up one morning and your investment is worth 20 percent less than the previous day, that’s going to have an impact on investors who are starting to question the future of Britain as an ‘investment hub’ in Europe.

The gap between the rhetoric of the economic recovery and Brexit negotiations is beginning to make the young of Britain to reject the status quo.

We live in an era where heated rhetorical battles are fought over terms that have lost clear meaning.

It is this morass rhetorical debate that defines what is wrong not just with Brexit but what is wrong with capitalism and socialism.

There is no need for a referendum or survey to tell you the truth. You don’t need jargon or ideology for a case against the status quo.

Surely it’s time for England to focus its imagination on not making the past more beautiful than it ever was, rather than imagining a better future by focusing on what is truly critical.

The creation of real stakeholders in the country. Not just the rich but among it’s poor.

The big misconception of the EU is that it has to do with money.

All knowledge centers must be connected together to imagine a world in new and exciting ways.

Walling yourselves in for personal security and economic security will be a disaster in waiting.

Before Brexit barely a day went by without a major multi-billion dollar fund from one petro-state or another making some splashy acquisition.

You could say that London financial center for all attentive purposes turned a blind eye to – from – why – where or how the money was acquired.

Chinese: firms bought up British assets worth $11.3bn (£9bn) last year and have spent nearly $50bn in the last decade on acquisitions into the country.

Norway: It bought 73-89 Oxford Street — a development currently under construction — for £276.5 million and spent a further £124 million buying 355-361 Oxford Street.

The Norwegian fund — which is worth roughly £720 billion — already had a significant footprint in London, and owns a 150-year lease on roughly 25% of Regent Street, another of London’s most recognizable shopping streets.

The fund also owns parts of New Bond Street, properties on Savile Row, the street famous across the world for its tailors.

As well as spending £400 million in London, the Norwegian fund bought a €1 billion (£850 million) office development in Paris and spent around $665 million (£534 million) on office spaces across New York, Washington DC, and San Francisco. It also purchased two further UK properties for a combined £5.7 million, with one retail unit, and one described as being used for “logistics.”

It also has 70 percent stake in five properties in Tokyo, Japan.

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund Public Investment Fund, known as PIF, is turning the PIF into a global giant by giving it ownership of state-owned oil company Saudi Aramco, which is preparing for what could be the world’s biggest IPO.

The PIF is also behind several large real estate developments in the kingdom, including a new city called Neom that will be built on the Red Sea Coast, an entertainment city on the edge of Riyadh and another tourism project on the Red Sea.

The fund is also an investor in some of the kingdom’s largest firms, including Saudi Telecom Co., Saudi Arabian Mining Co., and National Commercial Bank. It also took a 16.32 percent stake in Almarai Co., the country’s biggest dairy producer, last year as the government supports national companies and develops them into regional and global leaders.

The UK will need inward investment, particularly when it leaves the EU. The main problem is that these funds are lack transparency.

Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) remain, significant investors, with the assets of the top 10 now amounting to c.$5.5trn.

At the macroeconomic level, the rise of SWFs illustrates the seriousness of current-account imbalances in the global economy that have their origin in the managed exchange rates operated by some of the countries in surplus.

The accumulation of reserves for investment by SWFs should not become an end in itself.

A more specific concern raised by SWF investment in equities relates to the opaque way in which some SWFs function and their possible use as an instrument to gain strategic control. This concern sets them apart from other types of investment funds. More specifically, there is unease that – whatever the original motivation – SWF investment in certain sectors could be used for ends other than for maximizing return.

For example, investment targets may reflect a desire to obtain technology and expertise to benefit national strategic interests, rather than being driven by normal commercial interests in expansion to new products and markets.

By the same token, holdings could influence decisions by companies operating in areas of strategic interest or governing distribution channels of interest to the sponsor countries.

More generally, business and investment decisions could be influenced by the political interest of the SWFs owners.

Although in most cases, SWFs are portfolio investors and have avoided taking controlling stakes or seeking a formal role in decision-making in companies, concerns have been raised about the possibility of SWFs seeking to acquire controlling stakes in companies.

National security considerations have been acknowledged by some SWFs owners, who request clarity and certainty about investments that can be made and which areas might be “off-limits” to SWFs.

Since SWFs are managed independently from a country’s foreign exchange reserves, they are excluded from transparency mechanisms.

While they have existed for more than fifty years, over the past decade they have rapidly expanded to become a source of investment of systemic importance. They can offer a source of investment and market liquidity at a time of real pressure. Yet, as state-owned investment vehicles, some can raise questions about the risk that these investments may interfere with the normal functioning of market economies.

The longer-term impact of Brexit cannot yet be seen but you may rest assured that it will have its pro and cons when it comes to SWF who sole purpose is to generate income.

However, they are only part of the mix when it comes to who owns what in the UK there is another Sovereign wealth fund called the crown.

The monarchy is still one of Britain’s most valuable institutions, with a value of £57 billion to the UK.

The 89-year-old’s estimated personal fortune, largely inherited from her family, is about US$425 million ($673 million), according to an analysis by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. That’s a mere 3 percent of the wealth of the richest Briton, Gerald Grosvenor, the Duke of Westminster.

The Crown Estate announced in June last year that it returned a record £328.8 million ($464 million) to the Treasury in 2016 as the value of the overall estate rose to an astonishing £13.1 billion ($18.5 billion).

England might do well to pay attention to Micheal Collins words.

I quote.

” The object in building up the country economically must not be lost sight of. The object is not to be able to boast of enormous wealth or of a great volume of trade for their own sake. It is not to show a great national balance sheet, nor to point to people producing wealth with the self- obliteration of a hive of bees. The real riches of the Irish nation will be the men and woman of the Irish Nation the extent to which they are rich in body and mind and character.”

Or perhaps both the EU and England should take a feather out of the way E Bay Works.

You are only as good as your product and feedback. E Bay did not just create an online market it created a self-governing community.

Apple has shifted its tax liability in the UK to Ireland.

Amazon dominates retail in the UK.

Google dominates the browser market

There are currently no less than 97,000 properties owned by foreign firms in England and Wales.

The NHS is increasingly being infiltrated by American health providers.

The major public utilities – energy, railways, and water – are all to a significant degree foreign-owned

Nuclear power stations are owned and managed by the French company EDF (something the French would never allow in their own country) and that Hinckley Point C is a joint French/Chinese project.

If there anything to be learned from the above it is that we have a clash of mindsets: one pragmatic, the other dogmatic.

Neither understands the other.

Those incompatibilities are being played out today in front of our very eyes in the phony war over the negotiation. The EU is still of the belief that it runs the negotiation. It will not show flexibility because that’s not how it works. The UK, on the other hand, will not do as it’s told. That’s not how the UK works.

It will not comply with the EU’s negotiation strategy of meekly signing up to a large financial settlement before being fobbed off with a lousy trade deal. The UK would rather be damaged than humiliated by the EU.

The EU believes it will win because it refuses to believe the UK will walk. It will sign whatever is put in front of it. But this is to make the exact mistake that it has always made; it’s a misjudgment of how UK politics work.

The clearest indictment of the status quo is the status quo itself.

The Basic necessities such as food shelter are what’s needed, not Aircraft carriers.

Britain has suffered from decades of under-investment in public infrastructure.

Britain has deep structural problems. Manufacturing has been hollowed out. The gap between the richest and poorest parts of the UK is wider than in any other major EU country.

An excessive reliance on consumer spending focused on the bigger picture:

The only choice in a subsequent referendum that would be acceptable to many citizens is that between what the UK and EU actually agree in the withdrawal agreement and no deal whatsoever.

There is today, a very real risk of a no-deal outcome. This would be a traumatic and disruptive exit and bad for both sides. We have to hope this doesn’t happen.

Each side truly believes the other is deluded.

We cannot retreat from the world. We have to make sure that we get the best of our imaginations – while not letting our imaginations get the best of us.

Modern day technology with its Artificial Intelligence does not point in any single direction. However, the gap between words and deeds is growing.

In times such as ours where there is a slow disengagement of truth, we need to be reminded that our central calling, our main task on the planet, is survival, which with the ever-growing use of AI gives rise to a host of new ethical problems and dilemmas.

With most of us chocking on non-truths, new technologies, and AI, the earth and our living conditions on the planet are worsening faster than ever.

Both AI and technology are begging for attention in order to be harnessed to our common values rather than profit for profit sake.

This is a debate that is only just beginning.

Since time memorial man does not seem to be able to ” help ” his selfishness, the desire to stand out.

They say that we are stuck with our character, we can’t evolve beyond it or without it.

So let’s not ask what is wrong with modern-day society, but ask where it is leading us?

It seems to me that we are living in a period where the overproduction of truth and non-truth cannot be consumed.

We are tranquilized with trivial.

We can’t control our own actions and there is no control over the actions of others.

So are we going to end up living with an inner sense of chaos that robot will not have?

At the moment we are split in two we have the awareness of our splendid uniqueness, but yet we end up feeding worms.

However, if the fear of death is removed by Technology we will lose the ability of our self- preservation.

( Anxiety is something we all share, now more than ever – normality is a neurosis.)

Then it will become impossible for us to have the ability to organize our own perceptions and our relationships to the world.

If we remove the idea of death, we remove what it means to live.

So is technology and AI going to create a greater social- historical truth, by omitting religious and spiritual ideas for our lives?

To do so it must replace what in our conscious life is called fear.

Our present-day fears are fashioned out of the ways in which we perceive the world. So we continue to design societies of symbolic action systems with structures of statuses ( Likes, Hits, Followers, Tweets, Posts, ) and roles, customs, and rules for behavior designed to service vehicles for earthly heroism. It doesn’t seem to matter whether the cultural hero-system if frankly, magical, religious, primitive or secular, scientific, technological driven or not.

The question is how conscious are we of what we are doing to earn our feeling of heroism?

Is there a need to create a larger theoretical structure to society?

Or is it too late as there is no harmony that unites different positions so that the sterile and ignorant polemics can be abated.

The crises of modern society are precise that the youth no longer feel heroic in the plan for action that their culture has set up.

We have been unable to this day to give an overall sense of heroism to any present-day capitalist industrial society mainly because of inequality.

As profit for profit sake dons the cloak of AI it is disguising the way society sets up its hero system with virtual reality and false promises.

Indeed it will not be far into the future when Robots will invent reasons for anxiety even where there is none to allow humans to exist.

The fear of death is a biological and evolutionary problem. It is an expression of the instinct of self-preservation, which functions as a constant drive to maintain life and to master the dangers that threaten life.

If AI removes the fear of death what will our mental functions be- will it be just living in the moment.

All historical religious address themselves to how to bear the end of life.

If we remove death, our biology and evolution must transfer into Trans-humans.

Will we really be able to call such hypothetical trans-humans “human” at all?

We must be more realistic about our situation in nature.

(Just look at Donal Trump who has more trouble with his lies than others.)

If we don’t do so we are we all going to end up as children living in others dependence – or on Artificial Intelligence.

Many of us share some dim apprehension that the world is flying out of control.

The script for tomorrow is not yet written but we all know the rhetoric, around climate change, is it real, is it a legitimate threat.

We know that climate change is expected to impact the growing of stable foods. (The world storage of grains is about 60 days, a city about a week.

We know that sea levels will rise. That the increased ocean acidification will cause many sea species to go extinct.

We know that it will trigger other problems – famines, pandemics, wars.

We know that in terms of what is needed will take 20 to 30 years to implement.

We know that the atmosphere is a global common.

We know that present-day air pollution kills about 7 million people around the world yearly. There are over 5 billion people already living in water-stressed areas.

We know that for organisms to evolve they need time.

We know that Co2 has a lifetime of tens of thousands of years. It will not disappear in 50th years.

We know that if we burn all the fossil fuel left in the world the planet will warm by 18c and our seas will rise by hundreds of feet.

We know that the chances of the world staying within the Paris Climate change prescription of 2 degrees Celsius is a joke unless we come up with negative emission which is impossible.

We know that money or the lack of it make our governments impotent when it comes to implementing any worthwhile policies changes.

We know that planting trees will not resolve the problem. The average person whether they be American/ European or live in other industrialized nations produce the equivalent of two elephants worth of co2 a year.

We know that it is not really a question anymore about whether climate change is occurring. It is not some kind of countdown.

We know that any logic of a nuclear war is clear.

We know that mass migration will lead to wars.

We know that it is up to this generation to decide if they want to have an organized planet or a world threatened by numerous threats that if not addressed will bring untold misery for us all.

We know that the demand for energy outweighs technology progress which alone will not save the planet from the effects of climate change.

We know that we are reaching critical environmental limits that are going to be unrecoverable.

We know because of self- interests we are unable to act as one.

The problem is how do we go about creating an Organisation that is outside political influences, national interests, with total transparent, that is self-financing, with powers that are worldwide binding.

CLIMATE CHANGE IS THE ONE PROBLEM THAT IS GOING TO CHANGE THE PLANTED BEYOND RECOGNITION SOONER THAN LATER.

All the current technology, artificial intelligence, wars, inequality, charities, religions, cultures, the living and yet to be born will not stop the ability of Climate to make all our aspirations recede back beyond the big bang.

There will be little point existing on a planet of 8 billion, with or without Robotic Artifical intelligence if there is no food.

This is why it is now imperative that we establish:

A NEW DEDICATED WORLD ORGANISATION TO TACKLE CLIMATE CHANGE SOLELY.

WORLD SUMMITS LIKE THE PARIS CLIMATE CHANGE SUMMIT ONLY PRODUCE PROMISES THAT ARE WORTHLESS. WITHOUT ANY CLOUT TO REWARD OR PENALIZE THE PROMISES ACHIEVE LITTLE OR ANYTHING BECAUSE OF NATIONAL INTERESTS.

How many international organizations are there?

80 UN institutions PLUS 265 International organizations (IOs)

(International organization, institution drawing membership from at least three countries having activities in several countries, and whose members are held together by a formal agreement.)

With all our present world organizations it is no wonder it’s no wonder with the many diverse functions of these Organisations that it is impossible to address any of our problems to achieve any common objectives.

Surely every country in the world would if compensated would Agree to abide.

To those that fully understand the science and the impact of rising global temperatures and appreciate that there is a new city of a million people every week.

I REFUSE TO ACCEPT OR SETTLE FOR A WORLD THAT GETS SMALLER IN THE WRONG SENSE.

AS ERNEST BECKER SAYS IN HIS BOOK THE DENIAL OF DEATH ” IT IS TIME THAT WE FROM THE DARK NIGHT OF TRIBALISM AND NATIONALISM AND DEVELOP A TRANS-MORAL CONSCIENCE AND ETHIC THAT IS UNIVERSAL RATHER THEN ETHNIC.”

WE MUST MAKE GREED AND PROFIT CONTRIBUTE TO OUR SUSTAINABILITY NOT JUST THE STOCK EXCHANGE.

THE BEADY EYE HAS IN THE PAST MADE SEVERAL SUGGESTIONS LIKE THAT WE CREATE A WORLD AID COMMISSION OF 0.05% TO BE APPLIED TO ALL PROFIT SEEKING TECHNOLOGY. ( SEE PREVIOUS POSTS)

HERE IS ANOTHER SUGGESTION:

While most of us might have some clue how to nurture a more positive image of the world for our kids it is almost impossible to do so for other cultures speaking a different language living on the other side of the world.

However, with climate change, it is now a dangerous naivete to be lead by capitalist greed – growth at any cost.

The context in which people grow up shapes how they see the world. Smartphones – v- inequality.

ITS TIME WE MADE CAPITALISM CONTRIBUTE TO REPAIRING THE DAMAGE IT HAS INFLICTED ON THE PLANET.

IT WON’T DO THIS ON ITS OWN.

IF OUR WORLD LEADING INTERNET COMPANIES LIKE E BAY, GOOGLE, AMAZON, FACEBOOK, NET FLICKS AND THEIR LIKE WERE TO OFFER WORLD SUSTAINABILITY SHARES AGAINST PURCHASES OR POSTINGS THEY MIGHT FORCE LARGE SUPERMARKET TO DO THE SAME RATHER THAN LOYALTY OR FIDELITY POINTS OF BUY ONE GET ONE FREE.

THE IDEA IS SIMPLE:

BUY SOMETHING ONLINE FOR 100 EUROS AND YOU ARE GIVEN A SUSTAINABLE SHARE BY THE VENDOR WHO LODGES ONE EURO TO THE WORLD AID FUND.

MAKE 100 GOOGLE SEARCHES AND YOU ARE CHARGED ONE EURO WHICH IS LODGED TO THE FUND.

MAKE 100 FACEBOOK POSTINGS YOU ARE CHARGED ONE EURO WHICH IS LODGED TO THE FUND.

MAKE 100 TWITTERS AND YOU ARE CHARGED EURO WHICH IS LODGED TO THE FUND.

THE FUND MUST BE TOTALLY TRANSPARENT DISTRIBUTING ITS FUNDS WORLDWIDE TO COUNTER OUR HABIT OF SELF-DESTRUCTION AND SELFISHNESS.

If we ever wanted more evidence that we are now on the cusp of an event that is going to have a disastrous effect on society we only have to look at what is happening in the world at the moment.

Every advance in technology is moving us further and further from our attachment to nature.

Years of Capitalism for profit has produced – Pollution/Waste/ Excessive production/ Wars/ Climate change and technology in the form of AI. All asking the question is Capitalism obsolete?

It is not working for the vast majority of humanity.

Now faced with the arrival of Artificial intelligence, which if not regulated will control market forces, with the super-rich oligopoly of data billionaires reaping the wealth of automation and profit-seeking algorithms to the detriment of us all.

The more AI advances into a general purpose technology that permeates every aspect of life the less sense it makes to allow it to remain in the private hands rather than of the many.

Indeed there is already a case for nationalizing AI.

Its very pervasiveness is invading not just democracy but our private and social lives. Causing wars and exploitation of not just us but our economies – High-Frequency Trading, Sovereign Wealth funds, Currency trading, Trade Agreements, down to what toilet paper you wipe your arse with.

Its inability to spread the wealth, to tackle inequality and poverty not to mention its exploitation of privacy and democracy have recently seen -FaceBook.

No company should be allowed to possess an exclusive cutting edge technology or core AI platform. Indeed with Deep learning, we are now beginning to see programmers feeding computers with learning algorithms that expose them to terabytes of data resulting in software writing software.

THERE IS NO DISPUTING THAT THE WORLD IS GOING TO NEED THE POWER OF AI TO RESOLVE FORTHCOMING PROBLEMS.

But it must serve society as a whole instead of the private capitalist operating in their own self- centered interests.

It must be brought under social control by Regulation with the creation of a virtual world strongroom, where a copy of all original AI algorithms, software programs are required by law to be lodged to be held and vetted re there compliance with our core values.

As I said in a previous post;

We need to create a class of ‘algorithmic auditors’ — trusted representatives of the public who can peer into the code to see what kinds of implicit political and ethical judgments are buried there and report their findings back to us.

This is a good idea, though it poses practical problems about how companies

can retain the commercial edge provided by their computerized secret sauce if

they have to open up their algorithms to quasi-official scrutiny.

It is very unlikely that this will happen. We are however in danger of

App exploitation not only for profit but when there is no immediate cash peril –

culture, education, and crime.

We are well on the road to becoming slaves to the algorithms with computers

taking more than some tough choices out of our hands if we let them.

God forbid that some form of AI manages to become self-aware.

Such automated augury might be considered relatively harmless if its use is

confined to figuring out what products we might like to buy. But it is not going

to stop there.

Amazon Echo machine-learning services are both a powerful revenue generator that is going to remove us from any commitment to society or nature that sustains us all.

A low-cost, ubiquitous computer with all its brains in the cloud that you could interact with over voice—you speak to it, it speaks to you.

As companies build their vital machine-learning tools inside AWS, the likelihood that they will move to competing for cloud operations becomes ridiculously remote.

All technology programmers whether they are Algorithms for profit or otherwise should under Law be required to submit a verified copy of the program to be held in a virtual world strongroom, accessible to all ensuring transparency and accountability.

Perception is at the heart of this question and of course, there are hundreds of inventions that could and should be mentioned if we had the time and space.

We began the 20th century with the infancy of airplanes, automobiles, and radio. We end the 20th century with spaceships, computers, smartphones, AI and the wireless Internet all being technologies we now take for granted.

However, the world is steeped in poverty with precious little in the way of humanitarian advancement.

HERE IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER IS MY LIST AND WHY.

The credit card:

Part of the fabric of modern day life. Credit no longer the prerogative of the elite. The ultimate symbol of the triumphant Anglo-American consumer culture. The modern manifestation of money. Allowed modern Banks to transcend national boundaries. Guarantees payment of debts.

Microchip: Fiber Optics: Microprocessor: Windows

Created the Credit Card. The Internet and the World Wide Web.

Artificial Fertilizers:

Enabled the further expansion of agriculture and pollution.

Internal combustion engine:

The why is obvious:

The pneumatic tire:

Did more for the engine.

The condom/ Birth pill.

The why is obvious.

Nuclear Power:

Nuclear power has long provoked ardent policy fights, historically centered on the perceived safety or danger of splitting atoms to keep consumers’ refrigerators running.

Today, it’s not local or environmental opposition but economics that’s crippling nuclear power.

It may be very difficult to meet international carbon-cutting goals without the widespread addition of nuclear plants.

This still leaves the problem of waste, and a choice between nuclear waste—deadly but the concentrated poison that lasts thousands of years—and fossil-fuel waste—invisible, diffuse carbon pollution that in sufficient amounts will transform the Earth for thousands of years.

While nuclear waste is nasty stuff, so are the conventional pollutants of fossil-fuel burning. Nuclear power avoids air emissions of over one million tons of sulfur dioxide and 650,000 tons of nitrogen oxides each year, as well as significant particulate emissions.

Since CO2 emissions persist for many years in the atmosphere emissions cuts made today are worth more than the same cuts made down the road.

The best invention may be Toyota’s Hybrid.

AK-47 Kalashnikov: M16:

The twenty century can be characterized by mass warfare and mass killing- two world wars, Stalin’s purges, the Holocaust, Hiroshima, Cambodia’s killings fields, Rwanda the list goes on.

No firearm of any kind has killed more people.

It is the weapon of choice for terrorists, rebels with 75 million in circulation around the world accounting for 20% of the entire global stock of firearms. Every year, small arms kill between 20,000 and 100,000 people in the world’s conflicts. AK-47s Kalashnikov accounts for a high proportion – and quite possibly the majority – of this human toll. In the 68 years since the first prototype was made, the AK-47 has probably dealt death to millions.

This is the decade of AI (run by the Algorithm) I PAD, Youtube, Twitter, Facebook. Social Media. 3d Printing.